Syria army jet downed, pilot captured in Aleppo

Syrian government plane shot down by a surface-to-missile, state media and opposition sources say.

syria
Al-Eis, the town where the plane was downed, had been taken over by Al-Nusra Front on Friday [AP]

A Syrian army plane has been shot down in the north of the country and the the pilot captured alive, according to government media and the opposition.

SANA, the state news agency, said on Tuesday that the fighter jet was downed by a surface-to-missile and that the pilot ejected over the Aleppo province.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, had shot down the plane over the town of Al-Eis.

Al-Nusra Front is not party to a ceasefire between government forces and the opposition fighters that has been in place since February 27.

In footage circulated on social media, which purported to show the scene where the plane crashed, about a dozen men crowded around a man lying in the dirt.

Some of them shout: “He’s Syrian, he’s Syrian!” and others cry: “Get his weapons off him!”

On Friday, al-Nusra and its allies pushed government loyalists out of Al-Eis.

Last month, opposition fighters shot down a Syrian army plane over the village of Kafr Nabuda in the central province of Hama.

Source: News Agencies